Off the hook: inquiry produced 'big fat nothing'

31 July 2002 — 10:00am

The four-month Senate inquiry into the children overboard affair - which ended suddenly on Tuesday without hearing key evidence - has produced "a big fat nothing" because the Opposition gave in to the Government, a Liberal member complained on Wednesday.

Asked why the Opposition capitulated to the government's refusal to allow key staffers to the Prime Minister and former defence minister Peter Reith to give evidence to the inquiry, a Labor Party source said: "The view is we have got as much as we can from the Government and the process."

But Liberal inquiry member Senator George Brandis said Labor's decision to abandon the inquiry was "pissweak".

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"I said openly that we accepted the Senate's legal power to call those witnesses," he told smh.com.au. "We suspect that Labor was fearful that if the evidence was called, there'd be nothing in it. The whole inquiry has turned into a big fat nothing."

Labor has also abandoned its inquiry into an alleged attempt by senior Prime Minister's Department officer Dr Brendon Hammer to tamper with the evidence of defence witness Commander Stefan King, and will excuse Michael Potts, who Hammer says ordered him to meet King about his evidence, from giving evidence.

The wind-up decision comes before the Labor-initiated independent report into the case against Mr Reith, his then staffers Peter Hendy, Ross Hampton and Peter Scrafton, and Mr Howard's foreign affairs adviser Miles Jordana, has reported. When announcing the investigation by Stephen Odgers SC, Labor Senator John Faulkner said it was designed to flush out the men, and that he would not rule out issuing subpoenas forcing them to give evidence.

On SIEV-X, Labor's decision means the defence force will not be tested on shock admissions by Colonel Patrick Gallagher this month that defence intelligence told the then head of Operation Relex, Admiral Geoffrey Smith, that SIEV-X was a confirmed departure on October 20, despite Admiral Smith's evidence that so such confirmation had ever taken place. It also appears that Labor will also capitulate to defence minster Robert Hill's ban on Admiral Raydon Gates, as head of the defence task force formed to help the inquiry, giving evidence on SIEV-X intelligence and the alleged witness tampering.

Defence will also not be tested on Tuesday's evidence by the then head of the Prime Minister's people smuggling task force, Ms Jane Halton, that Defence, Coastwatch and the Immigration Department failed to advise the task force on October 20 that intelligence had confirmed the departure of SIEV-X, that it had 400 people onboard, and was at risk of sinking. The task force was first told on October 23 when its sinking became public knowledge.

Ms Halton expressed surprise at the failure, saying "every alarm bell around the place would have rung" because there was not enough accommodation on Christmas Island for such a large number of arrivals. Admiral Smith refused to intensify or vary surveillance to find SIEV-X after receiving the October 20 intelligence.

Wednesday's hearings are the last in the long-running inquiry, which will report on August 20.